“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you?”

James 2:14 (NRSV)

Holy One who created us to pray when life makes no sense, or when we are grateful, or when we are in need…

Let’s face it- we use our prayers as a way to stay in safe spaces. It’s easy to pray and send our thoughts to people who hurt. It’s simple to pray that an issue will go away.

And yet day after day, these thoughts and prayers are not enough. Issues continue to stack up. People are dying.

So today we pray that we have enough courage not only to pray with our mouths and minds and hearts, but also with our hands and voices and feet. It’s time for us to stop half-praying and time for us to fully pray with our whole selves. We know you are calling us to action.

Give us the clarity needed to complete your work effectively. And give us peace as we work to bring forth your Kin-dom to earth.

You’ve had chance after chance to do the right thing in many circumstances, but the powers that be in your organization and teams continue to make choices that oppress people who are not hyper-masculine, straight white male.

Let’s begin with race.

It’s seems as though you are using bodies for your own profit. And often, it’s the bodies of black males. You use them for your own entertainment, like in the days of the gladiators in the arenas. (How many have had repeated concussions and now have chronic traumatic encephalopathy?) Yet when they have an opinion that diverts from your owners or viewers, then they magically do not get their contracts renewed. Funny – their talent is greater than many players out there, but they aren’t playing. Colin Kaepernick is a good-hearted soul that wants justice in our world. He spends his resources building up other people. And yet he’s the one who has been unofficially banned from playing for using his agency to make the world aware of police brutality.

Secondly, you also forget the women.

There’s the issue of the cheerleaders who get paid less than minimum wage and must spend their own resources to keep their looks in top shape. (Two articles to read are here and here. Additionally, I wrote a piece on this blog here.)

And football player-related arrests tend to be related to domestic violence and sexual assault. The most frustrating thing about the response by the NFL is the minimal punishment (two to four game suspension like in the 2014 case of Ray Rice). A player committing violence against his partner is only ousted for a couple of games; a player peacefully protesting police brutality gets ousted indefinitely.

Furthermore, when riches and partiers gather at a Super Bowl city, trafficking tends to increase. Women and children are sold for a price for their bodies. The cities do what they can to watch for signs of traffickers and victims; yet according to this 2017 article, the NFL is in denial that such events take place at their precious event each year.

And you’ve managed to brush aside openly gay football players.

Again we fall upon widespread hyper-masculinity when seeing that there has never been an openly gay active NFL player, and few have come out after retiring. Michael Sam was drafted far into the draft and was eventually released – never mind his stellar NCAA record.

I’m sure that if you haven’t cared much about the other three groups, you’ve tried to ignore how you’ve played the intersections of race and gender. And with this I’m talking about Janet. (And since you are nasty, it’s Ms. Jackson to you, NFL.) Two people were part of the act. Ms. Jackson was publicly shamed and has been snubbed for many years. Her partner in the 2014 act will be leading the halftime show. She’s an African-American female. He’s a white male. There’s a pattern developing here…

And lastly, let’s think about wealth and your system, NFL. When I go on Instagram, I will see a host of celebrities with their photos at the game. I will also see a host of your friends taking selfies at their homes in front of the chicken wings. It’s because the cost of a ticket is almost $3,000. And the tickets went up 31% compared to last year. All games can be expensive, but when the tickets are this expensive, a person would have to work 413 hours at minimum wage to buy a ticket.

It would be nice if a certain percentage of tickets would go at a fair price to the average American consumer. But from my experience working at the Super Bowl hospitality village immediately before the 2001 game in Tampa, I saw how many corporate partners get tickets for the game, and how many get fed and provided libations in their own little tents inside the village right before the game.

NFL, you’ve managed to marginalize people of color, women, the LGBT community and working-class people. So as you see it’s you, not me. I avoided the entirety of your game and halftime show. I wrote and watched a movie on television. I still ate guacamole and chips, but instead of watching men of color used for their bodies and women on the sidelines objectified for a small fee, I chose to watch Kylie Jenner’s baby video instead.

I read an account in which a woman with the pseudonym “Grace” details a night of intimacy with actor Aziz Ansari on the website Babe. The account is one in which the woman agrees to go to his home after a short date. As the night progresses she indicates her discomfort with his actions, feeling pressured to engage in acts.

Granted, it’s not rape. It’s not exactly sexual assault. But there’s something not exactly healthy about the experience anyway. (Part of the account notes that he “wouldn’t let her move away from him.”)

Reading the article has the potential to give woman that disgusting feeling in their guts – a familiar feeling because of the common experience of many women.

And then The Atlantic releases an article to challenge the integrity of the women coming forward to hold him accountable by a woman-from-another-generation who essentially victim-blames Grace.

We’ve entered the gray area part of the #MeToo discussion that cannot completely be isolated from the #MeToo movement. The resistance of men to be self-aware of their behavior and aware of the verbal and non-verbal reactions of women is still a part of the consent conversation.

Reading the account in the Babe article made me uncomfortable – maybe because it’s not the most healthiest of experiences. Maybe because I’ve heard stories like this from others. These are stories that make your skin crawl, and the emotions that we’ve heard in this article are quite common.

When The Atlantic article was posted online, men AND women responded by slamming this woman for her account, engaging in the disgusting behavior of “slut-shaming” and “victim-blaming”. They are now questioning why she engaged like she did and why she didn’t leave his apartment.

If a woman has limited self-esteem, feels intimidated by her date, or really believes that things will turn around with the date, she may decide to stay. A feminist man can’t really be this way, can he? Could questions like this have been swirling around in Grace’s head?

And even more than any of these reasons – if the man is charismatic and is focused solely on his on sense of his own pleasure and feeling a heightened sense of (unhealthy) power by this experience, then he may be ignoring any verbal or non-verbal indications that she does not want this physical attention. Men often forget that they have an easier opportunity to misuse their power in sexual situations. In turn, women will forget that they have agency in the moment.

For this event, Aziz Ansari should not be fired or jailed. I still believe Ansari wants what’s best for women in his conscious mind. But he needs to be aware of his behavior and the reactions of the women with whom he is intimate. If he is going to wear a #TimesUp pin he must be willing to engage the ways in which he’s fallen short. All men need to evaluate their behavior as they become intimate with women, and all men need to be a part of this conversation. And this is why The Atlantic article is incorrect in their assumption that these allegations and the resulting conversations are “very, very dangerous.”*

If two people are physically intimate with one another – no matter if emotional and spiritual intimacy is present – the two need to connect somehow in the present moment to see how the other person may be withdrawing or how they may be hesitant. The space must be safe for all involved.

Finally, this conversation must take place alongside the #MeToo and #TimesUp conversations. It’s not a distraction from it. It’s not the movement going too far. And it’s not proof that the movement is a “witch hunt.” When women face violation and loss of agency in their intimate experiences, it’s more than a bad date. This may not exactly be rape or assault, but without a doubt a violation of trust.

*NOTE: One piece of The Atlantic article which I believe is worth commending is the way it questions the awareness of white women making accusations on brown-skinned men. Are we as rapid in responding when white males do the same? There are many times white males have acted in this way and the conversation goes very quiet by white women. We need to do better making sure white men are held equally if not more accountable and that they hear our concerns regarding this intimacy gray space. No matter what, we cannot stop talking about any story, and we must listen to experiences of our sisters of all races, socioeconomic levels, religions, and sexual orientations – especially women of color.

We pray for our siblings in Hawaii as they wrestle with the moments that opened their day. From the emergency message that burst from their phones to receiving the corrected message, we know that some may be dealing with trauma from 38 dreadful minutes.

These False alarms still shake spirits and scar one’s faith in humanity, God. It feels cruel that they these exist and that our friends were required to face such mistakes.

So, if post traumatic stress is pulsating through their souls, we ask that you comfort your people. May the Spirit’s peace serenity bubble within them. May their calls to loved ones today be conversations filled with laugh ter and sentiments of care.

God, many of us remember times when nuclear war seemed imminent, and we ask that you guide our world to a place in which we can all live in peace. May we never abide in a Cold War World again, and may the frigidness of our leaders thaw and allow new life to bloom.

God, you’ve seen the way the Bible has twisted the lives of Eve and Vashti and Tamar and Mary Magdalene…

And you see how the stories and images of women are twisted today.

We are tired, Mother God.

We are tired of the b-word and the frequent use of the words “whore” and “slut.” We are tired when people in power obviously work to intimidate us more than the men in our lives. We are tired when we are spoken over or told how we should feel. We are tired when we speak out and not believed. We are tired when our sheroes are attacked with greater fervor than the men who hold power. We are tired wheb being refused jobs because of gender (because, let’s face it, our reproductive organs have nothing to do with our qualifications). We are tired of the shame that comes with being born a daughter of Eve.

We are tired that Mother is not a good enough title for you, God.

We are tired of the little comments made to us or about us that make us feel less than human. We are tired of the larger ways our bodies and our accomplishments are tossed aside or belittled. Our energy is spent in ensuring that humanity sees us with the same dignity as cisgender men. Our sisters of color and our transgender siblings must spend even more of their spirits than we who are white women trying to achieve this dignity.

We are exhausted to hear how we should be grateful for the crumbs that have been scattered for us.

Crumbs are no longer enough. We are more than b*tches and whores and ditzes and witches. We will speak out when our voices are ignored, and we will no longer keep our stories silent.

We are worth every single piece of energy you used to mold us in your image. We are your children and deserve the inheritance of your kin-dom on earth as much as our male siblings.

You stand on the side of justice, and one day we will be equal in the eyes of our neighbors just like we are equal in your eyes.

God who operates beyond time and space, would you mind transforming me back to one year ago this afternoon?

Would you send me back to a time when hope still pushed aside the climate of despair? A time when I didn’t know death’s frigid grasp so well… a time when my body hadn’t yet become companions with various types of pain… a time when we stood on the edge of a possibility which would have brought prosperity for more of my neighbors and a time when hate was not so loud.

Where is this time machine, God? Maybe I would have made some different decisions, spent more time with loved ones, cared for myself in new ways.

I know we cannot travel back, and I know forward through the tunnel is the only path to journey. So give me the peace and strength as the suffocating shadows swallow me as I drive this stretch of road.

And as I reemerge from the tunnels, may your sunlight warm my soul again.

God of our coming in and going out: this world which was originally designed by you is beautiful but has spiritually rotated away from your intentions. We have been given the assignment of work, but there are workplaces corrupted by unfair practices. From harassments to unequal pay, from limited benefits to wages that can’t support families, labor and earnings are difficult subjects for us to face.

So we remember the workers who are harassed and bullied at work. Give them the courage to stand up for what is right. Give them new opppetunies when workplace harassment is abusive.

We remember the workers who desire to be hired but who have been overlooked because of who they are. We pray for them as they endure discrimination.

We remember the workers who do not make livable or equal wages. May they be strong and courageous in standing up for what they need, and may we create systems where wages are fair.

We remember the workers who cannot find jobs. May they find work that not only sustains their homes but sustains their souls, and may they feel dignity as they continue on the journey of searching.

We remember those who have been laid off. Keep their spirits and confidence high hat they may find work in the immediate future.

We remember the workers who feel stuck in their positions. Create a sense of newness in their current jobs or allow them to see a new path on which to travel.

We remember those who can no longer work due to disability. May they find avenues in which they find purpose even when their bodies and minds are in pain.

We remember those who are retired. May this current chapter in their lives create opportunities which bring them joy.

We remember the parents who stay at home caring for their children. Give them renewal in their work whether it’s cooking, carpooling, or wrapping their arms around their sick child.

We remember those whose work places them in harm’s way and ask for their protection.

May we each realize our own power and use this power to serve the world, not to serve ourselves. May we see you, God, as we walk down hallways, eat in cafeterias, join in contentious meetings, try something new, or look towards retirement.

God of blazing beams and unsettling shadows,
As the moon obstructs the light of day
And gifts us a midday nighttime,
Give us the much needed illumination for our souls.

We ask that in this eerie midday spectacular
We can see you in the shadows of day.
We ask that in this eerie season of multiple spiritual eclipses
That your light can rip off the biases and prejudices that blanket our hearts.

Make this weekday intermission one where we come together despite divisions
And celebrate the totality of darkness instead of wrapping ourselves in fear.
We know that darkness is as light and bright and beautiful to you, God.
Transform our hearts to see darkness as a gift and necessity to our world.

As the sights in the sky pass from one end of our country to the other
May it bless the land with peace.
May it bless the people with understanding of one another.
And may it beam love as it travels from north to south and west to east.

May this majestic and fearful apocalyptic-esque dance in the sky
Be one that unites us – even for the afternoon.
Let us set aside differences just for the day
And bask in the slivers of glow under this postmeridian phenomenon.

I’ve heard time and time again that people want to be entertained in churches.

I’ll be honest: I do not feel like it’s my call to entertain people. My call as a faith leader is to educate and engage people. My call as a faith leader is to help people see God in every step of their lives, to see every person as made in God’s image, and to help people grow closer to God and neighbor.

Now, sometimes I’ll throw elements of entertainment into the worship services I plan. But on the most part, I want people to feel like they are a part of the service and they are growing closer to God.

My main goal on a Sunday morning is not to entertain.

There are churches out there whose business it is to entertain people. Good for them. I’m saddened that more people would rather choose a church that is all about style rather than helping to transform churches of substance into something new for the twenty-first century. I’m saddened that our smaller churches are compared to megachurches providing entertainment with a hefty budget and a charismatic leader.

This is a symptom of something larger going on in our world. People always want to be entertained. Sure, there has always been forms of entertainment. And some has been more dangerous than others (see Roman Colosseum). Yet in the past two decades, the desire to be entertained at all costs has risen greatly, and the want of style not exceeds substance.

Love has been hijacked by whatever is found on The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. Friendship has been replaced by the Real Housewives of Whatevercityorcounty. The Kardashians have become like family as we keep up with them each week.

And now it’s spilled over into our government. The people would rather have an entertainer who places self, drama, and entertainment over seriously wanting what is best for our country.

Our country would rather have a charismatic entertainer who will do anything possible to keep people wanting more foolishness and drama than a serious politician who was probably the most qualified person for president ever. The consequence is this: our siblings on this planet who are people of color, women, transgender, gender non-conforming, Muslim, disabled, chronically ill, and refugees/immigrants feel threatened because people want to keep the Entertainer-in-Chief.

Each day is like a new episode of a reality show nightmare. From the hirings and firings to the speeches that would make my grandparents roll over in their graves, there is a train wreck happening, and somewhere in our minds, we can’t look away. We are driven to continue to check in on our phones and tablets and laptops and 24-hour news channels to see what next mess has popped up.

We choose frivolity over seriousness.

I’m tired of having this communal addiction to entertainment. If we really want to be entertained, let’s place our resources in fictional stories. Binge-watch Netflix or Hulu for a few hours or days. But let’s continue to keep drama and entertainment as part of our fiction. Our church and our state should still be places which house wisdom instead of folly and substance over style.

Over and over again in the book of Proverbs, folly and foolishness are mentioned. I’ll leave this one with you today.

“The mind of one who has understanding seeks knowledge,
but the mouths of fools feed on folly.”

Proverbs 15:14

May we rediscover the value of entertainment in it’s healthiest place. May we value substance, and may wisdom be something holy that we seek. Amen.

On June 29, 2017, I stood on the lawn of the US Capitol and spoke for approximately 15 minutes as part of a 24-hour interfaith vigil for healthcare. Below are my remarks.

*****

I am the New Testament woman with the hemorrhage.

Over 13 years ago, I was diagnosed with endometriosis, a health issue of migrating tissue, imbalances of hormones, and pain.While I dealt with pain for years prior to my diagnosis in 2003, much of the time I’ve dealt with the issue the best I can since sometimes it’s just an hour or two of rough pain with mild to moderate pain on and off during the other hours of the day.

But occasionally, the health issue will flare up like it did earlier this year.I’ll try various methods to try to control it. Physicians will say to me: Let’s try this pill.How about another ultrasound?What about trying birth control to manage the disease.Maybe it’s time to have another minimally invasive procedure.

Over and over I’ve tried different medications and procedures to manage this disease.More money spent here and there to see if this will be the magic formula to keep the disease at bay. The time spent at the doctor’s office or waiting.The costs of other health struggles that result from these issues – like low iron.

When my endometriosis flared up this year, it was adhesions causing the extreme pain.While many gynecologists treat it, only a few in our country know a special technique that will help the issue from coming back – at least for a number of years.But I checked with the doctor, and they are out of network, so after insurance, the doctor’s bill alone would have been around $15,000.I couldn’t go to the specialist who knew the special techniques of removing deeper tissue.Fortunately, I do have insurance, so I was able to go to my own doctor, and she helped remove some of the tissue. But even being on the top tier insurance, I still have nearly two thousand dollars I need to pay for deductibles and co-pays.

I am the woman with the hemorrhage – the one who spent time, energy, money to heal.But I’m not the only woman dealing with this issue.Many other women with endometriosis do not have health insurance.Even though my copays are costly, most of the costs are taken care of by insurance.Others with endometriosis can’t afford the birth control pills to attempt to control the disease, or the IUD that is known to help, and with cuts to Planned Parenthood proposed as well they will have one less outlet to find the help they need with this health care issue.They can’t afford surgeries.And then there are the women who have insurance who are being denied hysterectomies and other procedures by their insurance company.Some will take their funding issues into their own hands and create a Gofundme page.

They too are the woman with the hemorrhage – spending all of the time and money that they have to find a cure for this disease.

This is just one illness in a sea of so many illnesses that our neighbors, family and friends face.Each one of us at some point of our lives will find ourselves lacking in health and will need to see doctors about serious issues.Most of us can identify with one or more of the people who Jesus healed or the people who advocated for them.

Some identify with the Syrophoenician women from Mark 7.They will press with everything they have to make sure that they can afford treatments for their children.They will call doctors offices and hospitals to negotiate prices.They will contact their insurance company again and again to fight for a treatment to be covered.

Some identify with Peter concerned for his mother-in-law or the men who cut a hole in the ceiling so that they could lower their friend down in order to be healed.It takes advocates like children of elderly parents making sure they can afford home health care or nursing home care for a parent who is not able to care for themselves.It takes advocates like friends or family of people with severe mental or physical illnesses to ensure their loved one has exactly what they need.

Some identify with the child in Mark 9, then considered demon possessed but it sounded like he was having seizures.How did the father in the story react?He yelled “show us compassion!”Don’t many here want to shout that out loud to the powers that be, the men and women who work at the building behind me?Show us compassion.

When I read these stories, I think of so many of the people I know and have known with all sorts of health issues.I think of all the people I know – the people in my congregation and hope they will always have the care they need.I think about my dad.He has Parkinson’s.One of his medicines would cost him $19,000 per month if he didn’t have care.I think of my mom who advocates for him, calling up companies to make sure that he is covered.I think about both of them, hoping that laws don’t change and they will have to pay more for their medications.

Just like I identify with the woman with the hemorrhage, other people might relate to other women and men who Jesus healed.

And yet Jesus had compassion on them.He didn’t ask them over and over again to qualify themselves for care.Even the one person who he did question – the woman from Syrophoenicia – he began to understand her through their common humanity.He understood that he had no right to question the validity of healing her daughter.And instead of criticizing the woman or her daughter any more, he went ahead and healed them.

To our neighbors who serve our country in the United States Senate and House of Representatives as well as the executive branch: we are humans with dreams often cut short because our health care system allows our bodies to fail.We are humans wanting to live not just a long life, but a long AND healthy life.We are humans who want to see our children grow in body, mind, and soul.We are humans that want our elderly parents to decent care when they can no longer care for themselves.We want our siblings to have mental health care because we do not want to lose one more person to suicide.And we want you to look in our eyes and open yourselves to our stories.We want you not only to read Jesus’ healing stories in the Bible but listen to the stories of the people who struggle with health insurance and their diseases.Jesus listened to them, and if you are a follower of Jesus, we ask that you follow the life of Jesus and create a system of affordable healing.Do not cut what is there; expand to ensure that all people have one less worry in their lives.

We are humans who don’t want to worry that if we lose a job or our jobs are cut to part time hours, we can still afford health insurance.And if we find ourselves without insurance, we will find a way to get back on it again.We don’t want to base our vocational choices on whether the job has insurance or not but rather base it on the question “is God calling me to this particular vocation”?We don’t want to avoid doctors because being diagnosed with something gives us a preexisting condition, and we don’t want to avoid doctors because we can’t afford to go.Prevention is the key to longer and healthier lives.Many of the people in the building behind us profess to be pro-life, but are they willing to prioritize tax cuts for the few instead of affordable care and quality of life for the many?

Anything could happen to us at any point.God wants us to make sure that when it’s our turn to get sick that we aren’t forgotten.So now is the time for us to speak.And call.And write.

All of this reminds me of when I was entering seminary: since I quit my full time job, I worked at getting health insurance.There was only so much I could afford, but I was able to get on a plan.I had to justify a couple of the health issues I had – one being my endometriosis.And the only insurance I could afford was without maternity.If I had gotten pregnant during this time, I would not have had maternity covered.If I wanted to plan to have a baby, I would have to add maternity on one year before I got pregnant, or else it would be a preexisting condition.

Maternity.… A preexisting condition.

But so many of my other seminary friends were forced without it. Some couldn’t afford it at all.Others were denied insurance for issues like allergies or being over or under weight.Whether they had insurance or not, some got sick.One had an appendicitis without insurance and another two hernia surgeries before they started a full-time call.The costs were high.

I’m not sure of the number of seminary students who can now afford insurance thanks to the Affordable Care Act.But we ask that you don’t take this away from them.Or our next door neighbors.Or the part-time worker.Or the single parent working three part-time jobs.Or the person on disability.Or the elderly person needing Medicaid to stay in long-term care.Or the small business owner.

The Body of Christ is in pain because it can’t get the help it needs.It must suffer with ailments.It must put off medical tests.It must deal with the fatigue of pain.It’s time for the Body of Christ as well as our sisters and brothers of other faiths and who profess no faith to be well alongside of us. In order for that to happen, we need affordable health care for all.

And just like the stories of the people who Jesus healed have been told, it’s time for us to claim our stories too, our health care struggles, our worries about being able to afford healthcare whether we are on insurance or not, whether we are well or not, whether we are working or not.It’s time for our leaders to listen to our stories, to know that we are all broken and beautifully human, that we are made in the image of God.